Calumny, lies and more questions

Nicolas Sarkozy tries to disperse the whiff of scandal

BASTILLE DAY on July 14th, with its shiny military parade and precision flypast over the Champs-Elysées, is meant to be a time to celebrate French grandeur before the nation heads off on holiday. This year it felt like a brief distraction from grubbier matters. Despite President Nicolas Sarkozy's attempt to defuse the scandals hanging over him and his government, many questions remain unanswered.

In a prime-time television interview on July 12th Mr Sarkozy denounced as “calumny and lies” the allegations against him and Eric Woerth, his labour minister. The charges relate to a party-donations and alleged tax-evasion scandal centred on Liliane Bettencourt, billionaire heiress to the L'Oréal cosmetics empire. Mr Sarkozy admitted that he had dined at Mrs Bettencourt's mansion but described as “slander” the idea that he ever left with an envelope of cash to help his political career. Mrs Bettencourt's ex-accountant, Claire Thibout, who first made this claim, has since retracted it—under pressure, says her lawyer—insisting that she never said Mr Sarkozy “regularly” collected money, and never saw money change hands.

As for Mr Woerth, the president called him “profoundly honest”, citing an investigation by the tax inspectorate published the previous day. The report cleared Mr Woerth, in his previous job as budget minister, of “ordering, thwarting or orienting” any tax audit of Mrs Bettencourt.

Mr Sarkozy hoped this would draw a line under the affair. But questions remain. For one thing, Mr Sarkozy was not asked about an alleged €150,000 ($190,000) donation, nor about meetings he is said to have held with Mrs Bettencourt while president. For another, Mr Sarkozy implicitly acknowledged two problems that his government had tried to dismiss.

First, that there was at least a perception of a conflict of interest. In the interview Mr Sarkozy advised Mr Woerth to step down from another job he holds, as treasurer of the ruling UMP party, while remaining in government. (Mr Woerth is in charge of a controversial pension-reform package, which the cabinet approved on July 13th.) Mr Woerth says he will give up the party job this month. Mrs Bettencourt was a (legal) donor to the UMP, though her financial manager, Patrice de Maistre, denies that she ever gave Mr Woerth €150,000—far above the legal limit—to help finance Mr Sarkozy's 2007 presidential campaign, as claimed by Ms Thibout. Mr Woerth also denies the charge.

Second, Mr Sarkozy said that he would ask parliament to clarify the rules governing conflict of interest in public life. Mr Woerth's wife, Florence, was employed by Mrs Bettencourt as an investment manager at a time when, admits Mr de Maistre, the heiress held secret Swiss bank accounts—and Mr Woerth was clamping down on tax evasion. Mrs Bettencourt says that she will now declare all her foreign assets. Mrs Woerth has since resigned, and denies any knowledge of the Bettencourt family's tax affairs.

More twists are likely. On July 15th, as part of three ongoing judicial investigations, four figures were taken into custody: Mr de Maistre; François-Marie Banier, a society photographer who received gifts worth nearly €1 billion from Mrs Bettencourt; Fabrice Goguel, her former tax lawyer; and Carlos Vejarano, the manager of a Seychelles island of murky ownership.

There is concern that the presidency is uncomfortably close to Philippe Courroye, the public prosecutor in the case. Mr Courroye told Le Monde this week that he was acting with strict impartiality. Pressure to do so may have mounted thanks to the close scrutiny the case has drawn, in France and beyond.